1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an operational direction detecting device that detects the operational direction of an operator.
2. Related Art
There is a method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-245606 as a method of determining which direction a hand of an operator is stretched from. This method detects a position where the hand of the operator approaches and a position that is indicated by the hand on the basis of a position where the capacitance is formed when the hand of the operator approaches the display screen, by a touch sensor including a capacitance forming film that forms capacitance between itself and the hand of the operator when an operator touches a display screen.
Further, there has been developed a method of detecting a neighboring object by an ultrasonic sensor or an infrared sensor.
However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-245606, an object to be operated is limited to the touch sensor that includes the capacitance forming film. Further, in this technique, the amount of formed capacitance is very small. Accordingly, there has been a problem in that the hand of the operator should very approach the touch sensor in order to accurately detect the direction. In addition, since other objects except for a human body are also moved, it is not possible to reliably detect only the operator in the method of detecting a neighboring object by an ultrasonic sensor or an infrared sensor.